THE PRESIDENT UNDERMINES U.S. INTEL COMMUNITY

…The president doesn’t believe his own intelligence people on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump says the Director of National Intelligence was “flat wrong”.

It has become the reality that when the intelligence community doesn’t support Trump’s goals, the president will do whatever he can to undermine them.

Trump has questioned his own US intelligence community before.  But this time he has set a precedent for the releasing of information about America’s threats.

In the recent past, Trump has only hinted at being upset with the intelligence community.  Let’s face it, Trump has spread doubt about the Russian’s and their involvement in the 2016 election.  He has also disagreed about Saudi Arabia’s role in the killing of the Washington Post reporter, Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey.

But he has now stated in his tweets that the Director of National Intelligence, Daniel Coats, and other top intelligence officials were flat-out wrong in their threats posed by Iran, North Korea and the Islamic State.  This was Trump’s attitude about the latest, public intelligence hearing.

And why did the president have this view of this particular group of intelligence officials?

As expected, this was all about this group disagreeing with Trump’s personal political interests.  Trump views each of the group’s assessments as an affront to his leadership, (which it was), especially given that: he canceled the Iran deal; has unsuccessfully negotiated with Kim Jong Un of North Korea and that Trump falsely claimed victory over ISIS.  This, plus his announcement of a troop withdrawal from Syria.

When the Director of National Intelligence vented about Trump’’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that no one had any clue about what they discussed, the White House advisers privately fumed.  But of course, Trump just couldn’t hold off, and he went directly to sending out foul tweets about the group’s assessments..

In that series of tweets, Trump stated that Coats and other top intelligence officials were flat-out wrong in their assessments from the hearing.

"Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!” Trump said in his tweet. He added the officials were "extremely passive and naive” in saying Iran was still in compliance with the nuclear deal President Barack Obama forged and that Trump had voided.  (Perhaps the president should do what he says the other officials should do about “going back to school”….)

No, as usual, Trump didn’t outright attack the intelligence assessments, but he pretends that they didn’t say what they actually said.  And in the case of Khashoggi, where its conclusions about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s culpability were reported via anonymous sources, Trump pretended the intelligence had said something it didn’t.

What is disgusting is that the president got other members of his administration to mislead about those findings right along with him.

Fortunately, the hearing was mostly televised and being out in the open, the intel officials flatly disputed Trump’s claims that the Islamic State has been defeated.  They also noted that North Korea is still a nuclear threat and that Iran had been bragging that they were in compliance with the nuclear deal.  The group couldn’t pretend otherwise, because Trump’s claims were so over-the-top wrong.

Trump’s statements are questionable by the fact that his own assessments on all of these issues have changed in recent weeks. While he previously said the Islamic State was “defeated,” he said Wednesday the “Caliphate will soon be destroyed."  He previously said North Korea was “no longer a nuclear threat,” he now says there is only a “Decent change of Denuclearization.” So, even though Trump says his intelligence chiefs are wrong, he has publicly moved toward their assessments.

Of course, all of these nuances are lost on Trump’s supporters.

Trump has successfully reduced his Republican supporter’s faith in law enforcement, and now he has increasingly targeted the intelligence community.  The Trump message in all of this seems to be for multiple reasons.  First, those in his administration better not say things he doesn’t like.  (If you do, I’ll shame you!)  Second, that the intel official’s expertise is overrated, and “I am really the only one you can trust.”

It is important that whatever you think about a loss of faith in the legal process, undercutting the intelligence community is seriously, a life-or-death issue.

The reality is that some of Trump’s people tend to deal with Trump statements by toning them down.  That’s what the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the former Defense Secretary, Jim Mattis, did on the Khashoggi issue.

But what Trump does with the others is to drive those away that don’t toe Trump’s line.

Neither approach is a reasonable recipe for truly understanding the real dangers that the rest of us in the United States face by ignoring our intel officials.

Copyright G. Ater 2019